As a generation of baby boomers faces the aging of their parents, Karen Karbo’s resonant memoir tells the intimate story of one stoic father and wiseacre grown-up daughter navigating the last months of his life.

When Karen Karbo’s father, a charming, taciturn Clint Eastwood type who lives in a triple-wide in the Nevada desert, is diagnosed with lung cancer, his only daughter rises to the challenge of caring for him. Neither of them is exactly cut out for the job. Karen is a Doc Marten-sporting freelance writer who lives in Portland, Oregon, the primary breadwinner for a slightly chaotic blended family of five, who has always steered clear of the “helping professions.” Dick Karbo, a retired industrial designer and card-carrying member of the NRA, is an equally reluctant patient. As Dick’s disease progresses, Karen finds herself sometimes the responsible adult, sometimes a stubborn teenager all over again, by turns grief-stricken, rebellious, and amused by the grim ironies of the situation. In the end what father and daughter discover more than anything is the love and the toughness that makes them alike.

Sensitive and ruefully funny, The Stuff of Life invites you into a family as complicated and real as your own, capturing a moment filled with all the sadness and warmth of adult life.

A smart and hilarious look at husbands, wives, and exes, from the critically acclaimed novelist, and pundit of domesticity.

Karen Karbo turns her signature wit and wisdom to the state of marriage, divorce, and remarriage in this wildly funny and often painfully accurate portrayal of a life rife with “exes”: your ex, your husband or wife’s ex, the ex of the ex, and of course, their children. Generation Ex is written from the point of view of five women who gather periodically to share stories, blow off steam, and have a few laughs about the impossible-and stubbornly persistent-phenomenon that is the ex-relationship. These are the stories of women who have survived dating, a first marriage, and subsequent divorce. They now have everything they’ve ever wanted, but wind up with much more than they bargained for. They’re a bit older, wiser, more secure-and still manage to find themselves in the middle of rather messy situations.

A welcome relief from the how-tos and woebegone accounts of divorce, Generation Ex offers comic relief and wisdom to what has become a fairly common, though still maddening, state of affairs.